


For Dappled Things

by CaptainXeno



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: 5 Things, Awkwardness, Cute, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Romance, Scars, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Content, body image issues, off-screen sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6179362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainXeno/pseuds/CaptainXeno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 Things Meme Fic: Part 1 - Scars.</p><p>Five Traits Commander Rutherford Hates About Himself, </p><p>& How The Herald Teaches Him To Love Them Instead</p><p>***</p><p>I pictured the Commander as being a driven perfectionist and very hard on himself for aspects of himself he perceived as flaws. </p><p>And yet, many of the things he would self-criticize harshly are also quirks that people love about his character. </p><p>So, I imagined the F!Inquisitor as liking him for his "flaws" and being surprised that he dislikes these things about himself. He learns to see these aspects of himself through her eyes & develops more self acceptance and self esteem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the poem that inspired this piece. The short poem is about how all the "imperfect" things in the world, that are patchy, splotchy, mismatched, lopsided, weird... they all have their own distinct beauty. 
> 
> We should (and do) love them FOR their own unique differences and "flaws," rather than despite them.
> 
>  
> 
> ***
> 
> Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89).  
> 
> Poems.  1918. 
> 
> 13\. Pied Beauty  
> 
> GLORY be to God for dappled things—    
> For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;      
> For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;  
> Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;    
> Landscape plotted and pieced— fold, fallow, and plough;     
>  And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. 
> 
> All things counter, original, spare, strange;    
> Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)      
> With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;  
> He fathers-forth, whose beauty is past change:     
> Praise him.

For Dappled Things: Part 1 - Scars

***

The first thing she notices is definitely not the scar. There's too much to take in when they first meet. To Elena, Dalish bearer of the Mark, he is a wall of silver armor, red cloak, the physical bulk of tall shemlen male.

Hunter trained, she takes in details to review later. Dark blonde hair, amber eyes, veins standing out at temples and throat, an old scar slanting from below cheekbone to the upper curve of lip; not important when demons are falling like hailstones from a rip in the very sky.

When there is time in their refugee camp at Haven for her to study the man's face more closely for clues to his character, she cannot stop watching his eyes. A mountain cat's eyes, dark topaz.

She knows the Avvar from her travels with her clan, the way the spirit of the tribe lives among them in beast shape. Perhaps he is the Inquisition's animal spirit, she wonders, half in jest. It would explain his discomfort with conversation. 

After Haven falls, after the scattered people are gathered for the trek through deep snow into the highest pass of the Frostback mountains, she still thinks of him fondly as Skyhold’s hold-beast.

He sleeps perched in a high place, stalks in a heavy prowl along the battlements, roars at the recruits, paces his office like a too-small cage. His colors are red-gold and amber. The mantle of his Captain’s cloak drapes his shoulders like a mane. 

In the earliest days of spring, when she bests the son of a war chief in battle, the Avvar send them Storvackr, a great brown bear, to be their hold beast.

The soldiers build him a log pen in the barn, below the loft where Warden Blackwall sleeps. Horsemaster Dennet shrugs, saying “They can try to out-snore each other, I reckon.”

The Herald visits, bringing some of the advisors along, and feeds him fat purple berries of arbor blessing vine. He lips them one at a time from her flat, open palm.

Cassandra scowls, but when the brute butts his broad forehead against her hip, she hides a smiles and scratches behind his nubby ears. 

Cullen frowns to disguise his smile, making exaggerated noises of disgust as he mops bear spit from his cloak with an old saddle blanket.

Cole looks into hearts and speaks what he sees “Seeker, mother bear to all cubs, her cave as big as a map. He’s her golden cub too, all grown, but she still watches him. Not a bear. A lion with metal claws. Wearing his battles on his face.”

“Enough, Cole.” the Commander growls “You're not making any sense. As usual.”

The Herald studies him. Cole always makes sense, she has found. He simply doesn't explain the sense he finds. Yes. Cullen is a lion, she realizes. And the scars of all his fights are in his face.

Sleepless nights of worry over his soldiers marked in the hollows of darker skin under his eyes. Wrinkles furrowed faintly across his forehead from outthinking enemy after enemy. Squint lines from staring at reports and requisitions until his head pounds. Pale skin from the pain of withdrawal headaches. Cheeks reddened and lips chapped by the icy wind that whips across the tops of Skyhold’s wall.

Cullen coughs and looks away suddenly, and she notices she's been staring. Again.

“Cole’s right. You are like a big grumpy lion, guarding his territory, getting battle scars scratched all over him when he sticks his nose into everything.” she says without thinking. 

He blushes, actually blushes, frowns harder, turns away from her more. His gloved fingertips brush across his scarred lip, an unconscious gesture.

“Well, I… I'm a soldier. I was, anyway. I hit things until they quit hitting back. My job wasn't to stand around keeping my armor pristine and my skin intact. ” He glowers at Cole as if the spirit boy might be one of those things he'd like to hit. Bows to her and Cassandra. “Until next time, my Lady.” 

Cassandra stops petting the bear long enough to nod to him as he leaves. “How odd. I wonder what that was about?” she muses once he is gone.

The Herald thinks of how he has always stood with his left side turned more towards anyone he speaks to. A Templar habit, she'd guessed, meant to put his shield arm forward, ready to deflect fire or ice hurled by mages. Now she thought, perhaps also to deflect curious stares and thoughtless comments.

Two weeks later, he crowds her against the wall atop the battlements and kisses her. She closes her fists around handfuls of his fur mantle to keep it from being over too soon. This must be what it is to be a lioness, she thinks. 

Eight days after that, he sprawls, sweaty and panting in his desk chair. They are wrapped in his cloak, the Herald curled in his lap. For the first time ever that she’s seen, the Commander's desk is bare. “Well, that's one way to clear the paperwork off your desk.” she purrs. 

Cullen takes in the mess, papers scattered in drifted heaps across the floor, amid quill pens, ink bottles, strewn clothing, paperweights, ore samples, pieces of his armor, candles lying on their sides, extinguished in hardened puddles of spilled wax. “It's the best way I've tried, certainly. I wish I'd discovered it months ago.” he says.

Now that she is finally allowed, the Herald does what she's wanted to do, wanted for longer than she probably should; nuzzles at the stress lines of his brow, plants a kiss on the weary shadows under each eye. He laughs, and she touches her lips to the little smile lines at the corners of his eyes too. He doesn't smile enough. She hopes he'll smile more now.

“My handsome lion.” she purrs, and he narrows those golden eyes.

She brushes her thumb softly across his mouth, then nibbles a line of small kisses up along the line of the scar. Cullen pulls back, turns his head away.

“Don't pity me, I don't need coddling.” he protests.

“Ro’gasha, vhenan.” she teases. He is often frustrated by how much he struggles to pick up her language. He is clearly used to learning things quickly and easily, but Elvhenen is not a tongue for fast or easy thoughts.

He wrinkles his brow. “Don’t tell me, I know that one. Hm. Daring? Having courage? Have we gone over the conjugation of it yet?”

She hushes him with a kiss. So many things this shemlen custom is useful for!

“Daring, yes. Or brave. Most of all it means brave.” she presses closer against his bare chest, sharing his warmth. “When I was a child, we had a king Halla in our herd. As a fawn, he had lost his dam and his twin sibling to wolves.”

She combs her fingers through the thick gold of his hair, freeing curls to spring loose.

“Many Halla would have been frightened of wolves ever after. Not Ro’gasha. Once his adult antlers grew and hardened, he would chase down wolves that came too close to the herd, pin them to the snow with his antlers, and crush the breath from them.”

“I can't imagine the wolves went quietly.” he replies, trying to smooth stray locks back down as fast as she can tease them free.

“No, of course not. So he had many scars. Even one very much like yours.” She takes his chin and turns his face to the light. “He was thought to be the most handsome stud of our herd. The does chose him often in their season.” She stretched suggestively against him. “He was quite in demand.”

The Commander's face flushed darker “Should I get a helm with an antler headdress?” he teased. 

She scoffed “Of course not. You are a mountain lion. Why should you bother to fight wolves? They will see you and flee.” She turns in his arms to kneel straddling his lap, pins him hard against the chair back with her hands on his shoulders. “And I will not share you with other females, like a plains lion. The mountain lioness chooses the best male for herself alone.”

“I've got some maps and reports on enemy troop movements lying on my bed.” he replies. “I've been meaning to clear them off, but you know how it is…”

She rubs her forehead against his. “Ah. But I know a very good way to help with the task.”

They stare at each other, green eyes and gold, then tumble out of his chair in a scrambling race for the ladder to his loft. He beats her there by an arm length. She lets him.


	2. For Dappled Things: Pt. 2 - Curls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of a "5 Things" meme fic, about how a female/Dalish/Levallan Herald of Andraste helps Commander Cullen Rutherford see why she actually loves things about him that he dislikes about himself. Some spoilers, because it's fairly canon & canon compliant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I mildly hate this and want to set it on fire and then launch it into a black hole, but that's just because my writing partner hasn't thwacked it into shape with her +8 Bladed Staff of Not Sucking.
> 
> But I felt I was overdue to post something, so you get a sneak preview of the chapter, and I'll put the much better version up when polished.
> 
> (If you want to read an awesome Labyrinth post-canon piece where Sara gets goblin bodyguards who train her to be a badass, check out ButterflyOfStorms on AO3. 
> 
> That's my writing buddy. If you like my writing style it's probably because we've been nitpicking each other's work for 15+ years now, which means you'll probably love her stuff too.)

For Dappled Things: Part 2 - Curls

***

Her hands shake with rage so that she can hardly hold her twin daggers. The Herald’s knuckles are blanched pale of blood where her fingers clench around the leather wrapping of the Halla-bone hilts.

A low deadly voice spews a monotone chant of blasphemy and bile in her ears. It stops when she has to take a deep breath. Oh. That's me doing all the swearing. Ellana thinks, distantly.

The world feels far away, very small yet perfectly sharp and clear, like looking backwards through a scout’s spyglass.

How could you want to change your own child? This is the soul the gods have chosen and sent to you!

The cold dry air burns in her heaving lungs as she caught her breath. Indignant anger drives her on, past the numbness in cheeks and lips, past the grey sparkles dancing in the edges of her vision. 

She charges the training dummy hanging from a gallows-like pole, sidesteps, lashes out with her off hand dagger on her way past. The blade slices the dummy’s lower belly open. Cut stalks of straw spill out, drift away on the steady breeze. Not nearly enough like blood.

Arrogant shemlen, to think they can choose more wisely than the gods - or this Maker they claim to admire so well.

She sinks into a momentary half crouch for momentum, then launches into a backflip to land with her legs locked around the swinging mannequin’s shoulders, pinning the figure’s arms to its sides.

Her daggers cross its throat in a scissoring, slashing motion. The rip of torn cloth and leather is loud in the stunned hush of the training yard. The sawdust filled head parts slowly from the body, hangs swinging from the rope.

The dummy falls with a dull thump to the packed dirt, taking Ellana with it, her legs still clenched around the firm stuffed torso. They roll together, come up with the elf on top, kneeling on the headless shoulders. 

Growling her battle cry, she plunges her blades over and over into the inert chest. Flecks of sawdust and straw fly into her face. It is utterly unsatisfying, like toasting a victory with water instead of ale.

At the fenced border of the yard, she hears a familiar voice ask “What’s this about?”

***

Cullen is armored, shield hung on his back, sword at his side, ready to oversee the afternoon practice.

His eyes are a bit red, his lips bitten and chapped. A few curls have escaped his normally severe style to fall over his forehead. The hollows of cheek and jaw are darkened with one more day’s growth of stubble than he usually allows. Still, his back is straight, and his voice clear and steady.

Sera replies “Dunno. Quizzy was up in the library, all wordy with her pet Vinty-mage, next thing she’s down here gone all stabbity with helpings of extra murder. Cute, yeah, in a killy kind of way, innit?” 

The city elf shrugs and hitched her bow across her shoulders. “Then here comes you, watching me watch her, asking me questions your eyes can answer fine for themselves. And then it’s right now, and we’re all caught up, right?”

“Right.” Cullen answers, staring over her head at the flashing rise and fall of blades. “Thank you, Sera.”

Sera snorts “Thank me when I do something. Which I’m not going to, about… whatever that is.” She shrugs one shoulder at the violent murder of a training dummy “Somebody better, though.”

The Commander swings his shield off his back, settles it onto his arm, squares his shoulders, stance ready. The headaches have been bad the last two days. This afternoon the pain has receded to a faint throb at temples and the base of his skull, leaving him feeling faint and faded.

“Wish me luck” he mutters to himself. Sera hears him and caws laughter as she withdraws to a safer distance.

The Herald rises and turns as his shadow falls across her from behind, in one lithe twist of lean muscle.

“Want to try that last move on something that fights back?” He challenges.

Her eyes are the hot citrine color of the rift mark that leaks sparks of lurid fadelight from her clenched left fist. “Go away” she pants in short bursts between words “My control... is...not good... right now.

His sword scrapes out of the scabbard with a rasp of leather. He makes his shield ring out the sound of faraway thunder with the pounding of his mailed fist against it. Stepping closer, he intentionally crowds her aggressively, his size and armored bulk a threat all on their own.

“Fenedhis!” she spits “Leave me.”

The distance between them is small enough to close with a kiss. He drops into a forward lunge stance, letting his mass carry him to crash full force against her. 

Don’t pull strikes right now unless you plan on her bleeding you today Cullen-the-Commander warns Cullen-the-Herald’s-lover. He forces the shoulder and elbow of shield arm to tense at the moment of impact, pushes off with a sudden straightening of his rearmost leg.

To him, their collision is a hard jarring thump, barely worse than bumping into a hurrying recruit in the barracks hallway. He forgets to shut his mouth, so the impact clicks his teeth together, nearly biting his tongue. Out of practice he chides himself. He has not been well, not felt like himself, but this is no excuse.

Ellana’s breath is shaken from her in a choked grunt of surprise. She falls, but she falls well, arms thrown out to slap the ground, puffs of dust rising. Her knees come up to her chest, she pushes off her shoulders, rounds her back, keeps rolling back up onto her feet.

If a rage demon could turn into a very large cat, Cullen thinks, then that’s the noise it would make. Ellana’s shriek escapes between her clenched teeth. She charges.

Training beats theory, and experience beats them both. He should know; he tells the recruits time and again.

There’s a difference between knowing the speed of a viper’s strike and being able to avoid the whip quick snap of fangs. What that difference is, he leaves them to find written in their own skin, scribed in letters made of cuts and bruises.

Know where the blow will land, and don’t be there.

Rogues feint, they dodge, they slip past you and plant a heel in the back of your knee, a blade in your back. So, as time slows for him into the perfect focus of combat, he watches her eyes, shoulders, hips, for the shift of gaze and balance that will tell him whether she will feint right and move left, or the reverse. 

He is ready to block with the crossguard of his sword and strike with the sharp reinforced edge of shield, if needed.

Instead, she powers straight for him in a sprint. For a split instant, he wonders does she really plan to bodily tackle a Templar trained man in full plate…? No. She’ll go to either side at the last second.

At the last moment for decision, he sees her change her stride, bend her knees to spring. Or up. It’s easy to forget that attack from above is also an option with rogues. His thoughts as always are oddly calm and clear in contrast to the war-drum beat of his heart loud in his ears.

He raises his shield smoothly, as if preparing for a flight of arrows so scythe down. Not many men his age can still lift a metal tower shield over their head one handed. It is a flashy move, a young man’s move. He is nearly thirty now, he feels it in the joint of shoulder, the pinch of muscle under his shoulderblade. Next year, who knows. But today is today, and he holds his shield high and steady.

When he feels the vibration of her boot soles against the painted steel surface, Cullen slides his left foot forward, sweeps the shield out and down in a motion much like swatting aside a blow from great axe or broadsword.

His shield arm is instantly much heavier than he’d expected. The helm limits his vision. His scalp feels hot and prickly. Those stray locks of hair are stuck to his forehead, loose strands falling across his eyes.

From the corner of his vision he has just time to see that Ellana has not pushed off from his shield as expected. 

Instead, she clings like a wildcat to the side of a tree, daggers hooked over the top rim of the shield like long claws as she uses all her weight to spin him around and take him off his feet.

A knight standing upright is a walking armored siege tower, a juggernaut. The same man on his back is a fort surrounded and under siege.

There is the briefest chance to stay upright, and he takes it, lets the shield slip from his grasp in a flat arc like a skipped stone. It’s sloppy and unorthodox, and he is glad none of his men are here to see it. But it works.

Ellana rides atop it as it skids along the ground, her snarl changing shape into a fierce grin.

“How was Redcliffe?” he asks, trying to subtly buy enough respite to move his footing to a better stance.

“It was a trap. Of course.” she snaps. Her eyes stay on his as she bends, slowly, and picks up his shield. She’s strong enough to lift it fairly easily, but the sheer awkward bulk pulls her stance off balance. Still, she slides her forearm into the grips, then lowers her shoulder and begins another attack.

What the Maker does she think…? is all he has time to wonder before she makes two swift pirouettes, arms out, like a girl twirling around in full skirts, and sends his own shield spinning at his head. She follows behind it without pause.

Reflex wins out over surprise. He sidesteps, slaps the projectile out of the air, trusting to the leather padded steel of vambrace and gauntlet to protect his arm from the impact. The shield clatters to the ground somewhere behind him, out of view, bouncing off earth and cobblestone

It is only a distraction to disguise her real attack; they both know it. His sword hand is already in motion, a short fast strike with the weighted pommel. The long reach of his arm and sword is an advantage, unless she can move in too close, too quickly, for him to swing the blade. 

Still, she just manages to catch the crossguard against the guards of her knives. She can’t match his strength, cannot block the punch fully, but she doesn’t need to. All she need do is push the blow aside enough to slip past.

He guesses right this time, catches her ankle with his, so that she falls into a front somersault. 

The day is unseasonably warm for Skyhold. Stinging salt is already running into his eyes. His skin is streaked with perspiration. He hooks his fingers under the chinstrap, yanks off the helm and lets it drop. Too late, he realizes he might have thrown it as a distraction to force her to dodge again.

Her hair is clinging to her face in sweat-dark tendrils. She’s caked with streaks of dust and flecks of clinging straw. The boiled hardened leather of her light armored vest shows thin white lines where sweat has soaked through and dried.

“But you’re back. No injuries, no casualties.” He prods “According to the report.”

She snorts “Fen’harel take that report.” and comes for him in a wheeling, twisting flurry of blades. 

There’s no pressing need to keep her daggers from getting through his guard entirely - they’re double edged duelling blades, not misericords designed to punch through plate and mail.

The Templars taught him to use his armor as a second shield, to ensure that a slash to the throat lands instead on the gorget, that a stab at the open armhole of cuirass meets the solid curve of pauldron. It comes back to him now, bit by bit, as they test each other.

She had to be nearly worn out before we even started sparring he estimates. Surely he only needs to endure, to outwait.

“So what happened?” he asks, goading her into speech, hoping to see how much breath she can spare, how winded his opponent might be. It’s a stupid, grandstanding habit, bantering during a fight. So he tells his trainees. The only reasons he can see for making exceptions are if there’s a chance of taunting a foolish enemy into a rage, or discovering if a clever fighter is feigning more exhaustion than they feel.

“Halward. Nug-humping. Pavus.” she pants “That’s what.”

Now his experience tells him, now that she has only enough wind for one or two words in each breath. His sword flicks out, feints, parries. 

In a true fight, against a skirmisher this skilled at blocking and deflection, he’d prefer to wear her down and then bleed her, little cuts to bicep or forearm or thigh, meant to weaken and weary her into a final error. 

Or, perhaps an overwhelming forward rush, the human equivalent of a cavalry charge, though that might mean risking a desperate stab slipped between the joints of armor.

Although, in an actual fight, those knives would likely be poisoned he admits to himself.

He backs her towards the corner where the foundation of the mage tower meets the curtain wall of the keep. 

The new angle gets the sun finally, blessedly out of his eyes, allows him to see that the roaring sound he’s been hearing for the last little while is not just his breath and galloping pulse after all. 

A small crowd of trainees and veteran soldiers has collected. They are cheering. Not for him, not for the Herald either. Instead, they call out excitedly at each unorthodox attack, each daring riposte.

His face is hot and streaming sweat. The armor seems to hold heat like an oven, and he is the misfortunate joint of meat roasting inside it. Each muscle complains with a distinct and separate pain. It has been years since a simple spar took so much out of him. The last thing he needed was an audience while he fumbled his way back into his old level of skill.

Andraste forbid it, some of them will actually try to copy this… this hodgepodge of fighting styles and wild guesses.

He can see the same weariness mirrored in the flush of Ellana’s face, her pupils black and wide, skin sheened wet, nostrils flared, lips parted as she fights for air. 

They find the strength for a last effort, one more quick exchange of strike and counter. She tries to slide away and circle to his back once more, but he fences her in with steel, herds her against the wall. 

They end with the flat of his sword set across her throat. Without looking down, he can feel the hot prickle of knife points against his skin. One tickles painfully just below his short ribs on his left side, where his cuirass and backplate meet imperfectly. The other knifepoint sits in the hollow of muscle just below his right armpit, where pauldron meets breastplate.

She nods to him. Slams her knives into their twin sheaths at the small of her back.

“Match! Draw!” he announces to the onlookers, provoking another undeserved bout of cheering.

Bull hops down off the split rail fence of the training yard. “Good match” he calls out “Krem, Dalish, pair off against Harding and Rylen.” He tilts his good eye towards Cullen, checking that the Commander has no objections to the roster.

Cullen bows slightly, taps his fist to his breastplate in salute.

The next group of fighters stretch, roll their shoulders to settle armor into place, crack their knuckles.

Ellana leads the way to the rail fence nearest the training dummies. Bystanders shift down a few feet to make room. Cullen retrieves his shield and follows her.

“Dorian’s father was in Redcliffe?” He asks.

The Herald wipes at her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing on more grime than she removes. On her it is war paint. Cullen shakes his head, bemused. Other women would bargain with demons to achieve with carmine and kohl what she manages with the flush of exercise and the dust of a training ground.

“He was, yes” she replies “Only seeking forgiveness, or so he said. For the things he’d done to drive his son to us Ferelden heretics.”

Cullen nods, rakes his fingers through his hair. It has become a tangled mess of tight curls. He can feel it falling loose from the neat military style he combs it into each morning and evening. 

Inside the plates of his armor, his lungs still work hard, chest rising and falling more quickly than he’d like. Getting soft and careless. Too much time behind a desk. He pulls off one gauntlet, rubs at the stubble that itches on his jaw. And not enough time in front of a shaving mirror.

“That’s good, though, isn’t it?” He unbuckles his belt pouch one handed, lets his fingers sort through the contents in search of his wooden comb. “I mean that if he seeks forgiveness, then Magister Pavus must understand he was in the wrong to make such an issue over what is, after all...well, it’s a fairly common inclination.”

He drags the comb through knots and tangles, wincing as they snag and pull. Maker, what was I thinking, coming out of my quarters still in such a state. Half the new recruits look more like real soldiers than I do today.

Ellana grimaces “But that was just it. He didn’t seem to reconsider or regret his actions. Only that those actions had lost him the respect of his son.” 

She toes at the cobblestones, shakes her head in disgust “I am not saying this very well. It seemed that he was not sorrowful for his actions, only that he was grieved by the consequences. The man had not changed, not truly. Dorian said as much.”

Her teeth dig impressions into her lower lip before she speaks again “And… this must stay between us, but today he told me also that the true reason he left his homeland to journey through the north. He didn't so much emigrate as escape. His own father imprisoned him in the family’s estate, and attempted a ritual to change his nature to that of a man who...has physical feelings for women only.”

Cullen stares at her, opens and shuts his mouth twice before he finds words “Can that even be done? I’m not certain there is any method powerful enough, short of resorting to blood magic and consorting with demons.”

He fidgets with the comb, runs his thumbnail back and forth across the teeth. “Even then, even if you were mad enough to try it, I suspect you’d have an equal chance of ending up with an abomination. Or a dead son, just as likely.” Cullen paces a few steps away and back “One would think that if these Tevinter mages are so superior, they would know at least the basic principles of magic that even Templars learn.”

Ellana stares at him. He recognises the expression as the same patient, distant mask she uses while waiting for particularly obtuse nobles to understand the logic behind her requests.

“Maker’s breath” he gasps “He knew, didn’t he. His father knew what could happen. And he didn’t care. So long as there was even a chance of… of getting what he wanted.”

Cullen turns to look up at the narrow stained glass window of the library alcove where the exiled Altus labors daily to build a research library worthy of the name.

“Is Dorian… how is he taking it? I know that he and I have our differences, but politics aside, nobody deserves that. This kind of thing, this is why I still feel that mages need some oversight, a balancing perspective…”

Her hand on his arm silences him, helps him order his thoughts. 

She sighs, yanks the leather thong out of her damp ponytail, shakes her hair loose.“He seems to have taken it better than I would, in his place. Even after seeing his father at Redcliffe, I think he's doing better than I am now.”

Cullen laughs, startled “I doubt that. He has a talent for the dramatic.”

She shrugs ruefully “He only threw a book. Shouted a bit. I stabbed an innocent dummy to death and threw your own weapon at your face.”

He absently drags the comb in his hand through his tangles once more, attempting to straighten wayward curls, though it’s always been hopeless to try it without soap and hot water first. He’s not a vain man, but his appearance today is simply not acceptable for a professional soldier. 

I should be setting the standard for military behavior, not struggling to come up to the level of the trainees half the time he reminds himself.

If we intend to ask the nobles to loan us their troops, I need to at least appear competent to command them. No oversights, no amateur mistakes. Too much is slipping through the cracks . This time, luckily, the heretical blood mage wanted to reconcile with his heir. But it could have been kidnapping, ransom, hostages, assassination.

She clears her throat, and he realizes that she’s been waiting for him to say something while his mind is off wandering. Maker’s breath. 

He fumbles for the right words, or at least any words that will suffice “Yes, well, he’s your friend. I don’t approve of his background or most of his politics, but whatever his flaws are, he’s been loyal to you. Blood magic, mind control...it’s a large part of what we stand against. It’s understandable that you’d be upset” he points out.

She narrows her eyes, annoyed, whether with the entire topic or with his belated attempt at sympathy he cannot tell.

“That is part of it” she acknowledges “More than anything, what Halward tried to do… it is deeply anathema in the eyes of my people. Common doesn't have the right words to explain.”

He leans against the rails beside her “Try?” he coaxes.

She bites at a torn cuticle, picks stray grass seeds from her trouser leg “When a child comes to the clan to be born, it bears the soul chosen for it by the gods.” 

She rubs at a peeling callus on her palm, deciding how to explain “Perhaps you are a hunter, and so is your mate. Then your first child is born with magic, and becomes the First, apprentice to the clan’s Keeper.”

He nods, meaning go on.

She watches the combatants on the field, pounds her fist into opposite palm as she rants “You would never think to say, ‘Mythal, please take the gift of magic from my daughter so she may become a hunter as her father and I are.’ If a mage is what was sent to you, then a mage is what is needed. Who are you, to decide that the gods are fools? Are you a god yourself, to change what has been decided? How arrogant, to throw their gift back in their faces and say it is not what you wanted and what in the name of Dirthamen are you doing to your hair, you look like an angry dandelion!”

The commander freezes, fingers still buried in the frizzy mass of intractable curls he’s still been trying absently to straighten. He sees her expression flicker through several emotions: annoyance-surprise-curiosity-laughter as she stares up at him.

“I, well, it just won't lie flat today. Stupid thing to be bothered by, I know.” he admits, embarrassed to be caught fixated on something so trivial while she speaks with her usual passion of such powerful truths. “I was listening, though, I promise.”

She laughs, an oddly childlike sound, looks away, hand over her eyes. Sneaks a glance back at him, snorts of bitten back laughter escaping from closed lips. “Sorry, so sorry.”

“What!” he snaps “What is it?”

Instead of speaking, she draws her lefthand dagger and holds it up horizontally in front of his face, tilting it so he can see his reflection. Maker’s Breath, I look like...like...well, an angry dandelion. He flattens the frizzy cloud of blonde fluff with both hands; it springs back as soon as he lets go. She sheaths her blade.

Sighing, he pulls out the comb again. She snatches it from his hand. “Why are you using this?” she asks, waving it at him like a Seeker brandishing evidence of heresy.

He wrinkles his brow in confusion and reaches for it. She backs out of his reach, shakes her head, stuffs it in the thigh pocket of her trews.

“It's a comb.” he explains, unsure if the Dalish use them or not “You know. Used for… for fixing your hair.”

“No you don't. Not that kind, not for your sort of hair.” she retorts.

Why are we even having this conversation? he wonders. He feels completely wrong footed, off balance, lost as to what his reactions should be. It feels like the first time his trainers put a shield in his off hand during spar.

She takes his elbow “Come on, before Sera sees you. Heh. Or worse, Maryden.”

Curious, he lets her pull him along to the row of wooden buckets of water lined up on a trestle at the edge of the training grounds.

“Bend down a bit” she demands, fingers hooked in the neck of his cuirass, tugging downwards. He rests his forearms on the table and bows his head. Cool water trickles over his face as she pours cupfuls over his head. He can't suppress a quiet sound of pleasure as her fingertips work in small circles through his hair.

She talks as she works “My clan’s Keeper, her youngest daughter had hair like yours. Well, hers was red. All the other girls were rolling theirs up in headscarves and pincurls at night, trying to get theirs to curl the same way. Of course Daisha wanted hers straightened. Almost set her head on fire trying to press it between two heated pot lids.”

Coarse cloth brushes against his jaw as she rubs lightly to dry him with one of the rough sackcloth towels from the stack piled to the left of the water buckets.

“There.” she says, and hands him her dagger again, hilt first. He tilts the blade back and forth slowly, catching his reflection to see what she has done. 

His hair now falls in water darkened ringlets across his forehead, tucked back loosely behind his ears. It is not unflattering, precisely. But it is a roguish, unmilitary style, more what he would expect to see on Varric or some of his wastrel friends in Kirkwall. A younger man’s look, casual, careless. It does not say discipline, control, composure.

Automatically, his free hand rises to smooth it flat, a gesture he makes unawares dozens of times each day.

Ellana takes her weapon back, raps his knuckles lightly with the hilt of her blade. “Stop it.” He fidgets, shifts his weight from foot to foot.

Water splashes over the paving stones as she dumps the nearly empty bucket over her own head. Drops gleam on her collarbones, the high planes of her cheekbones. Her tunic clings wetly to her slim curves. The commander keeps eyes on hers, prevents his gaze from wandering below her throat. Control, in all things, always. Even small things. Once lost, discipline is not easily recovered.

The Herald mops sweat and dirt and water from her skin with long brisk swipes of her towel, finger combs her own short hair back from her eyes, stretches her arms over her head, then touches her toes quickly. He hears a few stiff joints pop. “Ahhh. Better. So, what do you think?”

“It may be best if Josephine finds some pretext to keep Dorian busy at Skyhold for a while. A working vacation, so to speak.” Cullen begins.

“Hah! I didn’t think you knew that word” she teases “Anyhow, I'd already offered, and he wouldn't hear of it. No, ara’vheraan, I meant what did you think of this. Much more handsome, don’t you think? ”

Before he can react, she tugs at the single curl hanging above his right eyebrow, lets it spring back into shape.

To buy time, he dips the metal water cup full, hands it to her. She drinks, a long pull, drops sliding from the corners of her mouth, licks her lips, sighs in appreciation. He takes the cup back, sets his lips on the rim where hers touched, finishes the last few sips.

“It, well, how to put this. You did a good job, it looks quite nice actually. It's just that it's not, I suppose not appropriate. Maker. I'm making a mess of this.” he rambles. Stop talking. Just stop. Before she slaps you. Or stabs you.

She looks at him as if he has suddenly started speaking Nevarran while dancing the remigold. “Appropriate?” 

Now that he's not moving, his hands are cold and the old dull ache is spreading at the base of his skull. “Possibly that's the wrong word. Informal, I should have said.”

The sudden predatory tilt of her head makes him think Now that expression is what you’d get for reciting dirty limericks in Nevarran while standing on your head. 

“Informal?” she waves a hand at the practice ground “Should I have worn my Orlesian sparring ballgown? If I am underdressed, perhaps I should go change.”

He rubs at the tight knot of pain at the back of his neck, tries again “No. Not at all. A man in my position, it's expected I should keep up a certain standard of conduct, of appearance befitting a Knight-Commander. What soldier would trust a leader who… who didn't keep his blade sharp, or went about unshaven...” he rubs guiltily at the day's stubble bristling his jaw “or...or let his armor rust, slept in after dawn, slacked on the practice field? Whatever I ask of my soldiers, I must set the example.”

Without intention, he has shifted as he speaks until he stands in the Templar posture used by troops lined up in ranks for parade review. Self consciously, he tries for a more casual pose, puts one hand on the table to lean against it. The edge of his gauntlet catches the metal cup, sends it clattering to the pavers, rolling noisily. Heads turn, then turn away. 

He bends quickly to retrieve the dropped vessel, catches the raised lip of his pauldron on the edge of the table as he straightens. Buckets rattle and slosh. A stray splash of water goes right down the back of his neck, under his cuirass, soaking into the thick padding of the gambeson underneath.

“Maker's flames take it!” he snaps, louder than he means to. Heads turn. People watch, schooling their faces and gestures to seem as though it is only coincidence. I'm not watching, this is simply the way my face happens to be turned at the moment, their attitudes say.

Ellana watches him mildly, lips curved in the barest of smiles.

“Ella… I apologize. I just don't feel quite myself today. What I mean to say is, as a Commander, people need me to look like a Commander. Not like an outlaw or a pirate or an Antivan bedwarmer. Pardon my language. I…”

She shakes her head, laughing. “Vheraan. How many Commanders does this Inquisition have?”

Cullen’s metal shell of armor feels heavier than usual, a cage, a coffin. “Just one. Just me.”

The Herald ruffles his hair, standing on tiptoe to reach. “Dirth’ala ma, dahn’direlan. Then how can you not look and act and be as the Commander should?”

Cullen’s lips frame words silently as he tries and discards translations mentally “Did you just say I should...learn to...hit bees with my fist?”

She snorts “No. Hmm. In a very literal way. It means, get this through your head, learn this lesson, bee-puncher. You know, the kind of stubborn person who would try to kill a swarm of bees by challenging them to a fistfight?”

He feels his lips curl into a smile, corners of eyes crinkle in amusement, though he tries to school his face to be still, stoic, respectable. “I may have seen a few of those types around the place, yes.”

She makes him want to go about the castle keep grinning like a schoolboy on holiday. Hardly the right impression for him to make on visiting nobles.

“You are the first and only Commander of the Inquisition.” she says, turning to walk towards the smithy. He joins her, at her left side, half a pace behind.

“Sometimes, that seems such a big responsibility for a farm boy from Honnleath” he admits.

She turns her marked palm upwards, stares down into the jade - green flare of light shimmering there. He bites the inside of his lip, looks away, ashamed of his weakness in the face of her greater burden.

“But the good side of that is that there’s no tradition you must keep to.” she continues, as they stroll along the base of the curtain wall. “There is only you, to walk ahead on the path and show them all how it must be done. You lead. They follow. However you look, that is the way a commander looks.” she tells him.

Steadying herself with a hand on his shoulder, she stretches up to brush a light kiss across the corner of his mouth. “If you insist that a commander must look...venal’in’or lavadahl fani’isan’in, then so be it. Personally I prefer my Commanders to have a bit of pirate outlaw swagger to their walk.”

He laughs, barely more than a harder exhale.In response, she rakes one hand through his curls, a possessive, oddly intimate gesture.  
“There is no wrong color for a lion’s mane. It is a saying among my people. It means...if the lion has a bright blue mane, then that is the right color for that lion. Because, hmm, do you want to be the one to tell a giant hunting cat that he is the wrong color? Or will you explain to the gods that they have made a mistake? Do not teach the trout to swim or the crow to fly, my Keeper would say.”

Again, she draws a laugh from him. Rough, rusty, short, but still a laugh. “So you're saying that if I start wearing plaidweave, I'll bring it back into fashion. Or, did you mean that I should have Vivienne dye my hair blue?”

She echoes his laugh “Not so loud. Sera might be near.”

Cullen holds back a shudder at the thought “Or Cole” he adds, just to make her grin wider.

As they reach the corner of the wall, he sees some of the Chargers gathered near the forge, along with a few of the Scouts, Varric and some of the regulars from the tavern. Bull is at the center, gray skin slicked with sweat, veins standing stark over straining muscle, as he struggles to hold an anvil above his head for one more second, and yet one more. With a roar, he drops the massive chunk of iron, steps back out of the way as it slams to the dirt. 

“Time!” he bellows, over the cheers and catcalls of his companions. 

“Two minutes, twelve seconds.” Varric rasps, jingles a satin purse in the air “Who’s next? There’s eight gold Nobles here that say nobody can beat Tiny’s best time.”

Cassandra stalks down the staircase above them “There you are. What is this I hear about the master armorer complaining he cannot do his job with you layabouts in his way? Something about a stolen anvil? Why am I not surprised to find you in the middle of this, Tethras?”

Varric shrugs, arms out in a ‘search me’ gesture “Aww, Seeker, he’s just pissed because he lost six silver betting his apprentice could best Bull’s record.” He jingles the purse at her “Don't be a spoilsport. Got eight of these gold beauties riding on it now.”

The seeker raised one elegant brow. “You mean to say there is that much money on a bet about the giant Qunari lifting heavy things?” she asks in a tone colder than lake Calenhad.

“Damn straight, Seeker” the Iron Bull agrees “Nobody does it better.” He flexes one bicep at her “All these dragonslaying muscles, that’s the trick to it.”

“Right.” Cassandra hisses, and pushes through the group to stand above the anvil. She yanks her gloves from where they hang tucked under her swordbelt “Step out of my way. We will see what a Penterghast can do.”

Ellana runs a hand down the inside of Cullen’s arm appraisingly, testing the width of muscle, a speculative frown on her face. 

“No. Definitely not.” he preempts the question he sees in the mischievous glimmer in her eyes.

He edges through the small crowd, passing behind Varric. The Dwarven author turns to see who is behind him. “Curly!” he crows with delight “Decided to own the nickname, I see.”

The Seeker growls between her clenched teeth, face red with effort as she straightens her knees, hauls herself upright apparently by sheer force of will. The anvil wobbles, her elbows shake briefly, but slowly, surely, she heaves it up over her head.

Dalish glances away from the Seeker at the sound of Varric’s voice. She leans on her bow, winks at Cullen, licks her lips in an exaggerated show of appreciation. She elbows her friend, the red haired tavern maid, to get her attention. The girl raises her eyebrows, sticks two fingers in her mouth and whistles at him.

The Herald fixes him with a level stare, as if to say, what will you do about it?

“Pirate swagger, I believe you said?” he teases her, low enough that only she can hear.

Then he strides through the press of bodies, a little extra swing in the motion of shoulders, chin held a bit higher than usual. 

“Ten silver on the Seeker” he says in the tone he usually reserves for orders that must carry above the chaos of melee practice. 

He feels Ellana’s hand tighten on his arm. “Avy isalal na, ishan” her whisper tickles inside the shell of his ear. That one I know he thinks, feeling blood rush to his face, and other places.

“I'll be in my office” he tells Scout Harding “Varric can bring my winnings to me later.” Cassandra shoots him a dark look, but it's worth it for the chuckle his words startle from the woman holding his arm.

He takes the stairs that lead to the battlements two at a time, Ellana’s hand in his, warm and real. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, the Inquisition wants YOU to comment! Every comment helps the war effort against Corypheus and his evil minions, Procrastination and Writer's block demons.
> 
> ***
> 
> Elvhen Phrases in this chapter:
> 
> I fail at Elvhen. Anything that accidentally makes sense is thanks to Project Elvhen’s excellent linguistic resources. Anything that is gibberish is totally on me.
> 
> (I'm including stuff everyone probably knows already just in case anybody new to the fandom stumbles in here looking for the bathroom.)
> 
> shemlen - everyone probably knows this is the Elvhen term for humans, maybe a bit derogatory, but just in case I'm including it.
> 
> Fen’harel - dread wolf, “evil” Elvhen trickster god. 
> 
> Dirthamen - Elvhen god of secrets and mysteries
> 
> ara’vheraan - my lion, colloquial term of endearment
> 
> Dirth’ala ma- “you should learn [a lesson]” implying that the person being told has some changes they really need to make to their worldview.
> 
> dahn’direlan - basically, idiot. Literally “bee[hive]-puncher” The kind of person who would try to get rid of a bee swarm by punching it.
> 
> venal’in’or lavadahl fani’isan’in - this is my unspeakably bad stab at transliteration of the American English colloquial phrase “acting like [the person] has a stick up their *ahem* @$$” I mean, we all <3 the Commander, but sometimes he’s what you might call emotionally, er, constipated. 
> 
> Avy isalal na, ishan - I have been wanting [to be with] you. The “isa” root relates to fire/heat and implies wanting in a more, er, physical sense, rather than “I've been lonely for/missing you.”


	3. For Dappled Things: Pt. 3 - Dog Lords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Inquisition makes more and more of a splash on the social scenes of Thedas, Cullen gets more and more self conscious.
> 
> Yes, he was trained in what was essentially a religious college/university. Clearly, at least the officer candidates learned some high society social skills since we see him dance, read literature, play chess, make formal appearances, etc. 
> 
> But at heart he fears that the "farm kid from Honnleath" hasn't rubbed off, and he worries about being a social embarrassment to the cause.
> 
> The Herald watches him try to curtail his love for stereotypically Ferelden, doing things like switching his favorite meat pies in gravy for pilaf stuffed game bird, ale for fancy Tevinter wine, replacing his wrestling matches in the courtyard with poetry readings in the solar with Josephine's friends - and big slobbery dogs with more appropriate hobbies for a high ranking officer. Maybe he attempts falconry.
> 
> ( Incidentally, I picture the only things Cullen ever "successfully" flies a falcon at as being one of the messenger crows, one of Sister Nightingale's nugs, and Blackwall's beard. There may have to be an intervention.)
> 
> Anyhow, Quizzie saves the day. And makes Skyhold safe for beards again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting what I have done as of today. Tags updated to reflect new content + content the chapter will contain when entirely posted.
> 
> Sorry it's so short - have been sick & not writing lately,
> 
> but I wanted to go ahead and post the little bit I have done on this next section so far, 
> 
> so that all of you wonderful people who gave Kudos and comments can see that it is progressing slowly but surely and hasn't been forgotten or abandoned.

For Dappled Things: Part 3

“Tis sweet to hear the watch dog's honest bark  
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;  
'tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark  
Our coming,  
and look brighter when we come”

-Lord Byron

 

Guardians of the Night

“Trust in me my friend, for I am your comrade.  
I will protect you with my last breath.   
When all others have left you and the loneliness of night closes in,   
I will be at your side...

...Together we will conquer all obstacles,   
and search out those who wish to do harm to others.   
All I ask of you is compassion,   
and the caring touch of your hands...

...My days are measured by the coming and going of your footsteps.   
I anticipate them at every opening of the door  
...

...Do not chastise me unduly,   
for I am your right arm,   
the sword at your side.   
I attempt to do only what you bid me...

...And when our time together is done   
and you move on in this world,   
Remember me with kind thoughts   
and tales.   
For a time we were unbeatable,   
Nothing passed among us undetected...  
We are the guardians of the night.”

Selected passages from Guardians of the Night  
-Anon.

Headcanon: the above poem is a source of religious contention between Ferelden Andrasteans and other branches of the Chantry. 

Fereldens believe that Andraste had a Mabari, and that this disputed canticle of the Chant is the blessing she spoke over the hound. 

In it's full form, it is spoken at an annual blessing of the animals in rural Ferelden chantries.

Selected lines from the verse are also spoken over the Mabari warhounds by a Chanter or in a pinch the highest ranking Templar available, before the dogs go into battle. 

Other countries & regions view this as heresy at worst and silly at best. Orlais, especially, views it as not only heretical, but also saccharine, maudlin, and gauche.

***

At first, she has to quell the urge to put arrows into dogs on sight. Her Dalish hunter’s instincts scream “wolf!” when she sees them trot by, tongues flopped lolling out of the sides of their mouths, draped over recurved teeth.

They're not really much like wolves, though. Perhaps like huge wolf puppies, noisy, eager, tumbling over their own paws. She gets used to them faster than she expected. Before the Blight, some of the clans used to keep occasional orphaned wolf pups until they were old enough to hunt on their own. They claimed that Fen’Harel would pass by a camp that was kind to an orphaned lone wolf. 

Other clans claimed the opposite. Wolves hunted deer, after all, and the white Halla that the clansfolk relied on. No sense crowding the two animals into a camp together and waiting for the inevitable. A few of the People once kept fennec or wildcats as companions. They could hunt for much of their own meat, rodents and rabbits and small birds. Not many, though, after the Blight. One squirrel or groundhog poisoned by blighted land, and your pet either died in pain or started to turn.

***

After the fall of Haven, on the march to Skyhold, meat was scarce. The dogs didn't make it. Not for the reason Vella expected. She suggested to Varric that dog couldn't taste worse than wolf meat. 

"Do yourself a favor," he'd said, after a long level look "And don't say that to anyone else around here."

The dogs that didn't die of their injuries from the siege died because the taint of red lyrium poisoned dogs worse than darkspawn blood. Owners and handlers took it in turns to carry the surviving animals as far as they could. Every no often, someone lugging a dog would stop, step out of the caravan trail, lay their still bundle in the wet snow, and begin pulling stones from the muddy track. As the refugees passed by, almost each one of them would step out of the march for a moment to add a rock to the growing cairn.

The last pile of stones was just in sight of Skyhold's curtain wall. Until the understory trees budded their dense screen of new leaves to catch the warming spring daylight she could see it from her balcony on clear days.  
It reminded her of a high water mark, where a flood had reached, left debris, and receded.

When they returned in the late spring to search the ruins of Haven, the path they'd taken in their flight from battle was marked by occasional small cairns of piled rock. Most of them had a few stones tumbled aside where spikes of red crystal thrust through the spaces. Some of the cairns were marked with chain collars with metal nameplates. Some just had thin leather collars with names scratched into the surface. Usually it was Varric swearing as he smashed every stray red lyrium outcrop he passed. Cullen broke a few with the edge of his shield, like a man chopping wood. No anger behind the blows, just the force needed to do the job.

The last cairn was small, maybe big enough to bury a large nug. The thin blue leather collar had the word “Tippy” cut into it. It sat on a flat rock beside a shallow wooden bowl and a stuffed rag chew toy in the shape of a bear. The stuffing was leaking sawdust between the stitches. There was still an inch of snow in the bowl. Cullen growled, actually growled, and kicked the biggest shard of crystal so hard it crumbled in a spray of pebble sized fragments. He beat the other three red shards flat with his shield, and kept hitting, metal clashing sparks off rock, until the face of his shield was dented. Cassandra put one hand on his shoulder, said something too quiet for the others to hear. He stood, leaning on his shield. His back was to the rest of the group, head down, as she spoke.

“Oi, wot set that off?” Sera muttered, a shade too loud for tact. 

Vella shrugged one shoulder, lowered the arrow she'd nocked when the Commander first stalked past her. “Fereldens are strange about dogs. It's foolish.” She didn't love him yet.

The blonde elf shook her head, curt, dismissive. “Nah. I like it. Makes him people, not just a big flaming sword for bashing things.”

The Herald raised a brow, tipped her head in a nod at Cullen’s dented tower shield.

“Right. So, still a big bashy thing, but we can aim where he bashes. Safer.” Sara amended.

Cullen called “Move out,” and strode forward, down the trail. When she passed the wooden bowl, she saw some of their travelling companions had left what could only be called offerings beside it. Half a shortbread cookie, a dried spindleweed flower, a small green felted wool ball. Vella didn't have anything to spare. She walked past, took one step back, and crouched to pour a third of her waterskin into the bowl. Dogs liked water, didn't they? Surely, they must. All the drooling and panting must leave them thirsty.

True, she didn't have much feeling for dogs either way, but the people she led did.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expanding on the canon view of rural Fereldens as big sweet surly farm boys with an embarrassing obsession with all things dog related, I'm theorizing that Antivans, Tevinter, and *especially* Orlesians like to play a "Mean Girls" style game of "tease the dog lord bumpkin" with Cullen and any other high ranking Fereldens in the Inquisition. 
> 
> Adding to the stigma, the Qunari in the Inquisition probably don't see what the big deal is with dogs and horses; like everything else, they're useful tools. 
> 
> The Dalish probably don't have a tradition of keeping dogs - haven't seen any in game in their encampment. 
> 
> And the Alienage elves I headcanon as being culturally phobic of big dogs like Mabari, because nobles and guards use them to terrorize and threaten the city elves.
> 
> So probably nobody thinks about how sad it would be for someone from an animal loving, pet keeping culture to live with no housepets.
> 
> I also headcanon that Cullen had a Mabari as a kid, maybe a big gray dapple one, and had to give it to his sister Mia when he left for training. I bet she snuck it in to see him on visiting days. Probably died defending the family when they fled the blight. 
> 
> Mia sent him the hide of the great bear in a package with one of her letters. Cullen shot it when he was 12 on a hunting trip with dad, the dog, and the kids. He kept it as a blanket in his room.
> 
> When Cullen moved out to train in the Templar barracks, the dog always slept on the bearskin because it smelled like his person. 
> 
> In her letter Mia told him to hang the bear hide up where he can see it, to remind him that like loyal guard Mabari, he can stand for courage, protection, loyalty, and guarding the weak. He went one better and made a fur mantle of part of the hide.
> 
> There you go - have some headcanon world building to make up for the incomplete chapter.
> 
> What do you guys think pre-teen Cullen would name a Mabari? 
> 
> Tell me in the comments & I'll write the first 5 people a drabble/vignette to a prompt of your choice as a reply.
> 
> If I pick your name as the one that goes in the story, I'll write you something longer :)
> 
> (Am challenging myself to write every day.)

**Author's Note:**

> The Inquisition gratefully accepts donations of comments, suggestions, & constructive critique to fund the ongoing war effort. Dracolisk eggs and mabari puppies are also welcomed.
> 
> Mean people will be fed to the nugs. :)


End file.
